Search This Blog

Oscar Senses Tingling, Part Two

What it's likely to get nominated for: Best Picture, Supporting Actor (Hoffman)What I'd like it to be nominated for: Lead Actor (Gosling)

I don't know what Ryan Gosling has to do to seriously warrant some Oscar consideration, but come on! Nominations for Hoffman and 'Ides' are a lock. Clooney would probably net something for his dichotomous role as Governor Mike Morris, if it weren't for The Descendants.

Martha Marcy May Marlene

What it's likely to get nominated for: Lead Actress (Olsen)
What I'd like it to be nominated for: Supporting Actor (Hawkes)This year's Best Actress field is a fiercely crowded one. Between the legends of Close and Streep, you have the solid Viola Davis and underdog character actors Olivia Colman (Tyrannosaur). Olsen may not be able to pull off what Jennifer Lawrence did last year with Winter's Bone.

J. Edgar

What it's likely to get nominated for: Best Picture, Lead Actor (DiCaprio), Supporting Actress (Dench)What I'd like it to be nominated for: Lead Actor

J. Edgar may have its faults--or several depending on who you ask--but Leonardo DiCaprio is certainly its strongest aspect. He took a man made of shadows and myths and presented him in his entirety. Despite the makeup he embodies a man obsessed with secrets, though he clings desperately to his own.

Popular posts from this blog

Weird is rarely used as a good quality in film criticism, but few words so completely describe Charlie Kaufman’s work as weird does. All of his films are a window into his very particular worldview, and that p.o.v. is certainly unlike anything seen in pop culture. For that reason, Anomalisa became an entry on many most anticipated lists for 2015. That Kaufman chose stop-motion to tell this story made the picture an event. So it came as a disappointment when the film was one of the year’s more mundane efforts.

Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind have an energy and heart at the center that is not present here. Previous collaborators like Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry were able to temper the overwhelming negativity Charlie Kaufman occasionally falls prey to, but, this time, the writer doesn’t have a director to rein things in. In all of his efforts to create an experience that is both familiar and alienating, Kaufman may have accidentally created something host…

It may surprise many that Martin Luther King Jr. never received the celluloid treatment prior to Selma. Sure he had been mentioned in other historical pieces, but short of documentary footage, King was never given center stage. Quite shocking given the man's legacy and the lingering effect of his efforts still felt today. Several years of production and a director change later, Selma arrives as the film worthy of the man.

Westerns have never recovered from the oversaturation that killed off viewer interest decades ago, but every now and then a gem pops up. Recent successes like The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, 2007’s 3:10 to Yuma and the Coen brothers adaptation of True Grit all did well because they tweaked the genre slightly, but director Kristian Levring goes with an old school approach. A faithful recreation of those revenge Westerns made so popular in the 1970s, The Salvation envelopes many elements of previous Clint Eastwood classics and wraps it into a tidy package.

The Salvation starts in on the central dilemma, joining Jon (Hannibal‘s Mad Mikkelsen) at the train station where he awaits the arrival of his wife and son. Jon and his brother, Peter (Mikael Persbrandt), have lived in the United States long enough to build a hospitable life for their family back in Denmark. This homecoming should be a sweet moment to establish the family important to Jon, but fate plays out…